Aberdeen is but one example
of the way enhanced security measures increasingly
conflict with the health and safety concerns of
ordinary Americans. Two basics--drinking water and
airline travel--help illustrate the trend. A public
health and bioterrorism law enacted last year
requires, among other things, that operators of
local water systems study vulnerabilities to attack
or other disruptions and draw up plans to address
any weaknesses. Republicans and Democrats praised
the measure, pushed by the Bush administration, as a
prudent response to potential terrorist attacks. But
there's a catch. Residents are precluded from
obtaining most information about any
vulnerabilities.
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This wasn't always the
case. In 1996, Congress passed several amendments to
the Clean Water Act calling for "source water
assessments" to be made of water supply
systems. The idea was that the assessments, covering
such things as sources of contamination, would arm
the public with information necessary to push for
improvements. Today, the water assessments are still
being done, but some citizens' groups say that
because of Bush administration policy, the release
of information has been so restricted that there is
too little specific information to act upon. They
blame the Environmental Protection Agency for urging
states to limit information provided to the public
from the assessments. As a result, the program has
been fundamentally reshaped from one that has made
information widely available to one that now forces
citizens to essentially operate on a need-to-know
basis, says Stephen Gasteyer, a Washington
specialist on water-quality issues. "People
[are] being overly zealous in their enforcement of
safety and security, and perhaps a little
paranoid," he says. "So you're
getting releases of information so ambiguous that
it's not terribly useful." Cynthia
Dougherty, director of EPA's groundwater and
drinking-water office, described her agency's
policy as laying out "minimal standards,"
so that states that had been intending to more fully
disclose information "had the opportunity to
decide to make a change."
The Federal
Aviation Administration has its own security
concerns, and supporters say it has addressed them
vigorously. In doing so, however, the agency has
also made it harder for Americans to obtain the kind
of safety information once considered routine. The
FAA has eliminated online access to records on
enforcement actions taken against airlines, pilots,
mechanics, and others. That came shortly after the
9/11 attacks, when it was discovered that
information was available on things like breaches of
airport security, says Rebecca Trexler, an FAA
spokeswoman. Balancing such concerns isn't
easy. But rather than cut off access to just that
information, the agency pulled back all enforcement
records. The FAA has also backed away from
providing access to safety information voluntarily
submitted by airlines.
As worrisome as the
specter of terrorism is for many Americans, many
still grumble about being kept in the dark
unnecessarily. Under rules the Transportation
Security Administration adopted last year--with no
public notice or comment--the traveling public no
longer has access to key government information on
the safety and security of all modes of
transportation. The sweeping restrictions go beyond
protecting details about security or screening
systems to include information on enforcement
actions or effectiveness of security measures. The
new TSA rules also establish a new, looser standard
for denying access to information: Material can be
withheld from the public, the rules say, simply if
it's "impractical" to release it. The
agency did not respond to requests for comment.
"Veil of Secrecy," a 
